‘The Fly’ is not one of William Blake’s most celebrated poems, but it provides an opportunity for us to pinpoint some of the characteristic features of his work. Here is ‘The Fly’, before we proceed to an analysis of this curious poem. The Fly Little fly, Thy summer’s play My […]
(Before proceeding to the analysis below, it might be helpful to read ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ and our summary of the poem.) ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ is a ballad, a poetic form that was popular – and ‘popular’ in the true sense of the word, being a form […]
‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ (‘the beautiful lady without mercy’) is one of John Keats’s best-loved and most widely anthologised poems; after his odes, it may well be his most famous. But is this poem with its French title a mere piece of pseudo-medieval escapism, summoning the world of chivalrous […]